Delivery of beverages to consumers is a basic problem for the beverage industry that has spawned various innovations. To deliver carbonated beverages to consumers, it is known to package the beverages in cans and bottles for individual or multiple serving sizes. However, high logistical costs for bottling, distributing, and storing billions of cans and bottles make high volume containers capable of point-of-sale distribution more desirable.
For carbonated or otherwise pressurized beverages, it is known in the art to deliver premixed beverages to dispensing locations in high volume rigid containers, such as kegs in general or Cornelius kegs in particular for premixed soft drinks. This is problematic because 1) supply chain efficiency is still low, and 2) it prevents an end user from customizing many aspects of the beverage, including content, concentration, and carbonation.
Many have tried to solve the problem by improving technology for mixing and carbonating beverages at the point-of-sale. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,260,477 to Tuyls discloses the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) canisters or other carbonators to either carbonate a beverage or to carbonate an ingredient of the beverage, such as water. Tuyls's devices permit ingredients for a beverage (e.g., water, CO2, concentrated flavoring or syrup, etc.) to be supplied independently to the point-of-sale, and improves supply chain efficiency. It also permits further customization of beverage composition by controlling the content, carbonation, and concentration of the mixed beverage. However, Tuyls's device is still limited such that customization of cooling temperature cannot be optimally controlled.
It is known in the art that cooling a beverage, or beverage ingredient, to a temperature below 0° C. generally results in a phase change from liquid to solid. This is a problem because such phase change can damage the dispensing device and may impede or completely prevent the dispensing of a beverage. However, such cooling is desirable for beverages intended to be consumed cold because subzero-cooled beverages provide a pleasurable “mouth feel” for consumers while avoiding the use of ice cubes, which ultimately melt and unfavorably dilute the beverage.
Many have tried to solve this problem by improving technology for cooling a beverage or its ingredients before dispensing. For example, G.B. Patent No. 2,424,638 to Kershaw discloses that beverages can be cooled to temperatures as low as 3° C. prior to dispensing. However, no currently available device allows the beverages to be cooled below 0° C.
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Thus, there is a need for devices and methods for cooling beverages, or beverage ingredients, to temperatures below 0° C. before dispensing the cooled beverage.